User talk:Boomer Vial

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Archives: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7: 15 days

If you feel that I have reverted an edit or issued a warning in error, please let me know. I am human, and I do make mistakes. Please don't interpret an error on my part as a personal attack on you. It's not, I promise. I ask you to simply bring it to my attention; I am always open to civil discussion. Thank you. Boomer Vial^{Holla! We gonna ball!}

If I see something such as a box, template, image, etc., on another user/user talk page that catches my eye, I will "borrow" it. More than likely without asking. ;) Boomer Vial^{Holla! We gonna ball!}

Things to keep in mind

Hi again Boomer Vial, and thanks for the barnstar! In regards to checking an IP's network, you will see two links at the bottom of their contributions page. One of them is labeled "WHOIS" and the other is labeled "Geolocate" both of these links will give you the IP's location and their network. Unfortunately, you cannot find the organization for some IP addresses because the service providers sometimes hide the organization from public view, which is probably why the "Likely a school based on behavior evidence" block was made. Luckily in this case, the organization is shown, and this IP appears to be registered to "Victorian WorkCover Authority": [1][2]. A simple google search shows that this IP is registered to some sort of insurance company. The process isn't too complicated, and you can use the templates from Template:Shared IP to label these (should always be put at the top of an IP's talkpage). I have already done this for the IP that you provided here. Hope this helps! - 172.58.41.69

Barnstars, awards, and WikiLove messages

	The Random Acts of Kindness Barnstar
	you're doing good Pim Jongkind (talk) 21:03, 16 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

You're off to a good start as a new Wikipedian; enjoy this kitten!

Esquivalience ^t 02:14, 5 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

	being an awesome person
	thank you for the welcome message that you sent me CuteCountryGirl1234 (talk) 00:08, 31 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]

		The Anti-Vandalism Barnstar
		Sometimes, recognizing your own diligent work is the best commentary needed. Boomer Vial^{Holla! We gonna ball} 08:02, 8 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]

		The Detective Barnstar
		For your much needed assistance in ensuring a banned user could not slow down our noticeboards, I hereby award you this Detective's Barnstar. — Coffee // have a ☕️ // beans // 19:06, 13 April 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Re: your post

Yes, sorry about that. There were a bunch of other IPs that were reported only for vandalizing one page, which I decided to protect instead of block. When I looked to remove the reports that didn't need blocking, I didn't see yours. It must have gotten mixed up in my loading the page. TonyBallioni (talk) 03:12, 1 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

TonyBallioni It's ok. They eventually got their just desserts[3]. No harm done. :) Boomer Vial^{Holla! We gonna ball!} 03:14, 1 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Re. User talk:77.73.68.211

In response to Special:Diff/813063891: See WP:UP#CMT. Users are permitted to remove notices, warnings, and messages from their user talk pages, with a few exceptions; block notices are not one of the exceptions. Removing the block notice does not remove the block. If they wish to remove it, that is fine. Talk page access can be revoked if they're being disruptive on their talk page, but simply removing messages isn't considered to be disruptive. —k6ka 🍁 (Talk · Contributions) 15:38, 1 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

K6ka That doesn't include removal of an active block notice, such as the IP editor was doing. That was the only reason I asked you to remove their access to their talk page. Boomer Vial^{Holla! We gonna ball!} 01:37, 2 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

ANI Experiences survey

The Wikimedia Foundation Community health initiative (led by the Safety and Support and Anti-Harassment Tools team) is conducting a survey for en.wikipedia contributors on their experience and satisfaction level with the Administrator’s Noticeboard/Incidents. This survey will be integral to gathering information about how this noticeboard works - which problems it deals with well, and which problems it struggles with.

The survey should take 10-20 minutes to answer, and your individual responses will not be made public. The survey is delivered through Google Forms. The privacy policy for the survey describes how and when Wikimedia collects, uses, and shares the information we receive from survey participants and can be found here:

https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/2017_AN/Incidents_Survey_Privacy_Statement

If you would like to take this survey, please sign up on this page, and a link for the survey will be mailed to you via Special:Emailuser.

Sign up here to receive a link to a survey

Thank you on behalf of the Support & Safety and Anti-Harassment Tools Teams, Patrick Earley (WMF) talk 18:24, 1 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

ArbCom 2017 election voter message

Hello, Boomer Vial. Voting in the 2017 Arbitration Committee elections is now open until 23.59 on Sunday, 10 December. All users who registered an account before Saturday, 28 October 2017, made at least 150 mainspace edits before Wednesday, 1 November 2017 and are not currently blocked are eligible to vote. Users with alternate accounts may only vote once.

The Arbitration Committee is the panel of editors responsible for conducting the Wikipedia arbitration process. It has the authority to impose binding solutions to disputes between editors, primarily for serious conduct disputes the community has been unable to resolve. This includes the authority to impose site bans, topic bans, editing restrictions, and other measures needed to maintain our editing environment. The arbitration policy describes the Committee's roles and responsibilities in greater detail.

If you wish to participate in the 2017 election, please review the candidates and submit your choices on the voting page. MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 18:42, 3 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Deletion review for Rika Tachibana

An editor has asked for a deletion review of Rika Tachibana. Because you closed the deletion discussion for this page, speedily deleted it, or otherwise were interested in the page, you might want to participate in the deletion review. Narutolovehinata5 ^tccsdnew 03:50, 4 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Narutolovehinata5 I'm not sure what you're talking about. I did not (speedily) close the discussion, and I did take part in the AfD article.[4]. Boomer Vial^{Holla! We gonna ball!} 00:24, 5 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

As you were a participant of the AfD discussion, I was simply leaving a message informing you of the deletion review. Narutolovehinata5 ^tccsdnew 01:34, 5 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Narutolovehinata5 Oh. I didn't even know that was a thing. That's what I get for not clicking on the link before replying. Thanks for the heads up. Boomer Vial^{Holla! We gonna ball!} 04:44, 5 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Help with signature

This help request has been answered. If you need more help, you can ask another question on your talk page, contact the responding user(s) directly on their user talk page, or consider visiting the Teahouse.

Hey there, fellow editor. While trying to add a contribution link to my signature, I managed to botch the entire code, and was forced to reset it back to the standard signature. Can someone help me with the code so my signature is as it was before, please?[5] Thank you, very much. Boomer Vial (talk) 06:37, 5 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

You can paste this into your signature box - [[User:Boomer Vial|Boomer Vial]][[User talk:Boomer Vial|Holla! We gonna ball!]]. If it does not help, search for help in the village pump. Cheers, FriyMan ^{Per aspera ad astra} 08:02, 5 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

As well as that, how about this - [[User:Boomer Vial|Boomer Vial]][[User talk:Boomer Vial|Holla! We gonna ball!]]•[[Special:Contributions/Boomer_Vial|Contribs]] or Boomer Vial^{Holla! We gonna ball!•Contribs} - Cheers, FriyMan ^{Per aspera ad astra} 17:39, 5 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

FriyMan Can you make the "contributions" text the same color as "Holla! We gonna ball!", please? Boomer Vial^{Holla! We gonna ball!} 05:15, 6 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Yeah, I'll try. It is quite confusing. Cheers, FriyMan ^{Per aspera ad astra} 10:57, 6 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Here you go - [[User:Boomer Vial|Boomer Vial]][[User talk:Boomer Vial|Holla! We gonna ball!]] • [[Special:Contributions/Boomer_Vial|Contribs]] or Boomer Vial^{Holla! We gonna ball! • Contribs} - Cheers, FriyMan ^{Per aspera ad astra} 11:10, 6 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

FriyMan Thanks, a bunch! Boomer Vial^{Holla! We gonna ball! • Contribs} 04:13, 7 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Minesweeping

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I've noticed that a certain long-term sockmaster and abuser has gone quiet. So, I was wondering what would be the quickest way for me to do a non checkuser sweep for any sleepers, or Bonadea trolls that might of fell through cracks. All of their targeted pages are high-traffic, and digging through them by hand would be like mining for Painite. Boomer Vial^{Happy Holidays! • Contribs} 07:07, 9 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Unless you're familiar with naming patterns, there's no way for a non-Checkuser to find sleepers. How could you possibly tell which account that hasn't edited yet, or hasn't edited disruptively yet, belongs to this sockmaster? Conversely, if there's no perceptible disruption at this time, is looking for sleepers that may or may not exist worth the effort? Huon (talk) 17:07, 9 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Huon That's the thing. Nsmutte does their best to hide their edits with inconsistent naming patterns, and only editing to high-traffic boards. Perhaps "checkuser" was obviously not the correct term to use, there. Let me rephrase it as "Is there anyway for a normal editor to more quickly find such LTA-linked accounts without all the revision mining?" The rationale for asking this question is that I figured there's got to be a quick way for normal editors to be able to track erratic LTA accounts without having to dig to China in the revisions history trying to find what they are looking for. They might have gone quiet, but looking at the consistency in which they make sockpuppets, I don't believe they're anywhere near done being disruptive. Boomer Vial^{Happy Holidays! • Contribs} 02:13, 10 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Unfortunately I don't think there's some easy shortcut here. CheckUsers have the tools to look for technically connected accounts. Without those tools (or when those tools fail; they're far from perfect) we have to rely on behavioural evidence - and that means checking the contributions or page histories. Huon (talk) 13:32, 10 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Huon Well, it was worth asking, anyways. You never know if there might be some easier way of doing something unless you ask. Thanks anyways. Boomer Vial^{Happy Holidays! • Contribs} 15:44, 10 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Help with resizing images

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I found a picture of a beautiful (what I think is a) Boat Orchid to add to my userpage. Question is, how do I resize the image so it fits better on my page? I can only figure out how to make it a thumbnail. Boomer Vial^{Happy Holidays! • Contribs} 03:15, 13 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Boomer Vial - what you need to do depends on exactly what you want the picture to look like and how large you want it. Sizing a basic image with no caption is easy (see Example 1). However, you want it to have a caption, it'll need the "thumb" parameter added... which will add some slight complications. The "thumb" parameter requires the "upright" parameter, which means that you can't set the image size like in Example 1. You instead have to use the "upright" parameter to set the ratio of its original size (see Example 2).

In a nutshell, if you want a caption, it requires that you handle the image size differently. Otherwise, you can just explicitly set it. My examples are below:

Example 1

Explanation: An simple example - no caption. 300px wide and on the right side.

Code: [[File:example.jpg|300px|right]]

Result:

Example 2

Explanation: An example with a caption. It's 15% in size compared to the image's original size, and it's on the left side.

Code: [[File:example.jpg|thumb|upright=0.15|left|LOOK HOW TINY I AM!!!!]]

Result:

LOOK HOW TINY I AM!!!!

The pages you'll want to read through (and the ones I referenced when building you those above examples) are Wikipedia:Images, Wikipedia:Wikimedia Commons, Wikipedia:Picture tutorial, and (the one that helped me the most) Wikipedia:Extended image syntax. Please let me know if you need help with anything else, and I'll be happy to do so. Cheers :-) ~Oshwah~^{(talk) (contribs)} 06:37, 13 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Oshwah Thank you for the detailed response. I added the resize of the image using the first example. I'll let you know if I have anymore questions. Boomer Vial^{Happy Holidays! • Contribs} 23:53, 13 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Regarding fan cruft

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I'm curious, is plot additions covered under fan cruft? I made a few minor detail edits to James "Sawyer" Ford, and I want to make sure that I'm not violating any policies or guidelines in doing so. Boomer Vial^{Happy Holidays! • Contribs} 19:50, 15 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

You may want to check out MOS:PLOT. It depends on context; particularly if it gets overly detailed, plot may be seen as fan cruft. In this case, I don't think knowing about the rope improves our readers' understanding of Ford. Huon (talk) 21:21, 15 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Huon I see what you mean about over-detail, it's just a tad annoying to read something knowing it's not fully accurate with the scenario it's describing. I see a few details here and there that could be tweaked for accuracy. Is it OK to add to details, so long as I don't go overboard in detail, or should I just completely avoid the ones like the one I mentioned above? My aim isn't to make Wikipedia read like Lostpedia, but simply be more accurate in the information that Wikipedia is covering. Boomer Vial^{Happy Holidays! • Contribs} 21:41, 15 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Reports to UAA

You seem too eager to report to user names to UAA. Please understand what should go there, and what should not. Please read the instructions for reporting to UAA. Promotional intent is not a username violation.

The top of the Admin page clearly states:

This page is for usernames that are such blatant and serious problems that they need to be immediately blocked.
Reports are assessed according to the username policy and the UAA instructions. Please read those pages first.
Real names are permitted except when they imply that the editor is a specific living person they are not.

Thanks. -- Alexf^(talk) 20:19, 15 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Alexf ~~I'm assuming you're talking about the most recent editors I reported to UAA? They were all using their accounts for promotional uses. Wouldn't this fall under WP:SPAMNAME~~? Boomer Vial^{Happy Holidays! • Contribs} 20:33, 15 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

No, never mind. I read through it again, and realized that the policy that would cover this type of usernames would be the one regarding writing self-biographies. Can I ask a favor of you though, Alex? Could you go double check the most recent articles I CSD'ed under G11, please? I have a feeling they might not be correct, and it would be better for a more knowledgeable experienced editor to go through them. Boomer Vial^{Happy Holidays! • Contribs} 20:39, 15 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Hey

Sorry to bother but as you sent me a welcome... could you maybe check if i have not messed up other parts of the Age of consent article? I removed a completely unsourced table, or rather one sourced entirely to other Wikipedia articles which i guess is the same as being unsourced. I did preview it and it looked alright but i have never done such a substantial edit and am a bit paranoid that i messed something up (Usually i just fix random typos or comment. Things that are pretty hard to mess up, haha). No issue if not, just did not want to break anything and in general thought removing it was the way to deal with the sourcing issues. And again, sorry to bother and have a good day. 91.49.71.240 (talk) 01:04, 16 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

(edit conflict) I did so as soon as I seen your contribution in the recent changes column. The edit was perfect, all the unsourced data was removed and nothing else was altered. No bother at all. If you have any questions at all, feel free to ask either here, on your talk page, or the WP:HELPDESK. Thank you for doing so, and again welcome to Wikipedia! Boomer Vial^{Happy Holidays! • Contribs} 01:06, 16 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

That is a relief then, haha. Happened upon it after lurking on ANI (yes i am weird, i know, haha) and thought i could and should fix it. One thing i was unsure about was the thing under the actual table which i thought may have had a place in the further reading section. But that was minor overall. Anyway, thank you for confirming that i am not completely inept, hahaha 91.49.71.240 (talk) 01:13, 16 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Your welcome. You should think about creating an account with Wikipedia. It would make it a lot easier to keep track of tasks, policies and guidelines, etc. Boomer Vial^{Happy Holidays! • Contribs} 01:17, 16 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

And it was rolled back. I guess some people prefer unsourced content... 91.49.71.240 (talk) 01:31, 16 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I left a message on their talk page, asking them why they reverted. Boomer Vial^{Happy Holidays! • Contribs} 01:34, 16 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

This is in essence why i never bothered to make an account. I totally understand that people may object to an edit like that but with basicaly no pointer towards any policy reason it gets pointless. I guess that will have been the only time i removed unsourced content. It is not worth the time to argue over something so benign. The topic does not even interest me. Happened on it by lurking as i mentioned. But anyway, many thanks for treating me as a human and your assistance. Sorry for having bothered you with something, in the end, so futile, haha. Have a good day/evening anyway :) 91.49.71.240 (talk) 02:11, 16 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I guess i was wrong, turns out it is well worth my time trying to understand what... on earth... is going on, or rather what i did wrong... (better not curse i think, haha). This has moved from a disagreement to being utterly bizarre for me. I have no idea what their issue is anymore. But hey, english is only a second language for me so it quite enjoyable in that regard lol. Have to always to take something positive from any experience so i am doing just that... even if not easy, haha 91.49.71.240 (talk) 05:41, 16 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Vandalism warning templates

Thanks for the welcome!

Do you think I have been consistently too strict with the warning levels I used? As in, should the first warning always be level 1 no matter how egregious?

In specific cases, do you think I was too strict to the vandal I reported to AIV for vandalizing Troy, Missouri? And for the vandal who used racist language on Boswell High School, I used level 3 - was that okay, or should I have used 4im, or lower?

Thanks again! Win98fan (talk) 03:28, 16 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

It depends on how tendentious their editing is. I usually reserve 4im for the most severe cases, and generally start with level 1. The case of the Boswell High School vandal was more severe, and they were issued the correct level warning. There is no set-in-stone guideline that says "if they vandalize in X fashion, start with Y warning." It's more a rule of thumb. The warning for the Troy, Michigan vandal was a bit bitey. You always want to WP:AGF that one will stop vandalizing when leaving a level 1/2/3 warning template. If they don't, then the reviewing administrator will see that they were given plenty of chances, and assumed good faith that they would cease and desist. Hope this helps! Boomer Vial^{Happy Holidays! • Contribs} 03:41, 16 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

(talk page watcher) @Win98fan: Just to chime in, I'd like to apologize for this. You did nothing wrong, veteran editors do make mistakes and need to remember they too need to follow community norms. --NeilN ^{talk to me} 03:49, 16 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

NeilN You might want to remind them, Neil.[6] Their attitude is way, way too bitey. Boomer Vial^{Happy Holidays! • Contribs} 03:52, 16 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I wanted to avoid potentially more drama but yes, you're right. Done. --NeilN ^{talk to me} 04:06, 16 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks Neil! Win98fan (talk) 04:11, 16 December 2017 (UTC) (BTW, your message on that user's talk page has been removed)[reply]